Black LabDavid Young, the distinguished poet and translator, offers us a gorgeous cycle of poems attuned to the Midwestern seasons—to weather both emotional and actual. A writer of thrilling invention and humanity, Young beckons the reader into an effortless proximity with the fox at the field’s edge, with the chattering crow and the startling first daffodils of spring. In his tour of both exterior and interior landscapes, the poet scatters his father’s ashes and remembers losing his wife, Chloe, to cancer, a loss at times still fresh after several decades; pays homage to the wisdom of the Chinese masters whose aesthetic has helped shape his own; and reflects on the gladdening qualities of a walk in a snowstorm with his black labrador, Nemo: and in this snowfall that I should detest, late March and early April, I’m still rapt to see his coat so constellated, starred, re-starred, making a comic cosmos I can love. Young’s expert shaping of this world in which, as he writes, “We’re never going to get God right. But we / learn to love all our failures on the way,” becomes for the reader a fresh experience of life’s mysterious goodness and of the abundant pleasure of the language that embodies it. |
Contents
Blakes Dante and Virgil Penetrating the Forest 1824 | 25 |
Wear My Father | 38 |
Five Poems of Old Age | 53 |
Copyright | |
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aging appeared arms Ashes bear beauty Billy blue body branches climbed clouds coat cold comes Dante dark David dawn deep Designed don't dream dusk dust eclipse eyes face fall father's feel flower forest giving glow GNOSTIC HYMN goes green grow hand Here's hills hope inside January John late leaves light lived longing look lost March means memories MICHIGAN mind miss you already moon mountain moved named never night OHIO once pair past peach picking Plato playing Poems Poetry poets rain RISE Sally Sally cut Secret Selected sense shine shoes sleep smile snow sometimes starred stepping stop strange Talk tell things thought throw tiny track TRANSLATIONS trees turn visits WALKING watch WEAR White wind Winter wonder Young younger